New arcade room build!

vader1979

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So after 8 years of dreaming, i have finally moved into a house where i can build a dedicated arcade room for all my games. It was initially 2 separate bedrooms, but i tore out the middle wall to make it one big room. Its not huge by any means...12' by 24', but hoping i can get at least 16-18 games in there for sure. I already have the carpet on order from astrocarpetmills.com. in the meantime, the taper is covering all the patchwork, texturing and priming.
I i will paint it all once hes done, and before the carpet comes. My first choice was Shockwave, but that has been discontinued for a while now. So i have about 3-4 weeks until the carpet comes to get the walls and ceilings painted.
I am wanting to call my game room "The Grid", as i love the TRON lights and designed.. Im also huge star wars fan, but cant think of a good star wars name for an arcade room! Plus i like the color scheme of Tron. I have attached a few pics i pulled off of google with the color scheme i am going for, along with the retro style looking pin stripes along the ceiling edge. I am hoping to do those in black light paint so it really pops. Some pics are different colors that i am looking for, but have the stripe design of what i am wanting to copy. As for base paint, i am thinking a nice dark glossy blue for walls and celings. I then hsve to decide what colors represent TRON for the stripes going along the ceiling.

Below are pics of the home arcade as it looks today!
I am hoping some of you may be able to give me some cool ideas that i could do to make it look even better. I sm trying to copy TRON colors as close aspossible to colors used on TRON and Discs of Tron. Unfortunately, my imagination skills are pretty muxh non-existent. So if you hsve any cool ideas to paint on my walls, or get arcade decor, it woulld be great start to the room . I for sure need the walls complete before tapers come back to inish it!!
Im my next thread, i will show you the pic thst resemble how i am thinking of doing the walls, stripes. Couple pics
 

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Tron cp lighting makes me think neon, which would be flourescent paint and a lack of lighting so it would glow. Black light will illuminate it, constantly charging it actually, but starkly. But would flourescent paint over the colors obscure them? Do they make tinted flourescent paint?

Another CooL idea would be LED strips. They're so inexpensive; I have a few sets for ambient lighting in various rooms, love 'em; plus they have bling built in - modes that you toggle via a remote. Build disperser housings so they're concealed. Or a diffuser so it glows like a vector line.

If the ceiling is 8 feet, you could do some images from the movie or/and game in the top two or three feet. Below that will be covered by games.
 
Congrats on the new home. I can't wait to buy a bigger house so I can have a decent sized arcade.
 
Dude, that is awesome! The room and the Tron idea. I'm toying around with the same idea. Mine is to have some computer world shapes that stick out from the wall. They would almost fit together, but they'd have some space in between. And then there would be LED lighting behind the whole design. This could look really cool! If you know someone who has some theater or graphic design skills, invite them over and have them draw some sketches...
 
That's going to be an awesome space. Probably too late seeing as you already ordered the carpet, but what about a dark tile floor with flourescent tape criss-crossed into a grid pattern?
 
Hard floors suck a dick. Carpet is a minimum to cut the echo. I skipped Zapcon this year because it's so bad there.
 
Dude, that is awesome! The room and the Tron idea. I'm toying around with the same idea. Mine is to have some computer world shapes that stick out from the wall. They would almost fit together, but they'd have some space in between. And then there would be LED lighting behind the whole design. This could look really cool! If you know someone who has some theater or graphic design skills, invite them over and have them draw some sketches...

Thats a good idea. I was thinking of the 0172 design that is on the monitor bracket on a discs of tron. Could hsve that along the top.
 
Subbed.

If I did this, there would definitely be a tron mural happening, maybe some faux bricks, and definitely some recessed blue led lighting in a circuit board trace pattern...like the tron legacy art pallet.

Look forward to this!
 
This is the carpet that i ordered. Its the closest i could find to a "grid" like pattern. Think it will fit in well with the wall colors i have planned!
 

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Here are some other images i pulled off google of some upper wall stripes i would like to do. I would use fluorescent paint for these stripes.
The second 2 pics are just for reference on what i could do as stripes along the top and down the sides. I like how they curve on the edges. Giving it that 80's retro arcade look. I wouldnt use those colors, but love the look of it. The walls will have a base color of a dark glossy blye, so the stripes could be a lighter blue, green, red.
 

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As for the black lights, i will have some 4 footers on the ceiling, but also want to get some lower to the ground to help make the carpet pop under the black light. The ceiling is going to be painted the same base color as tge walls. I saw this pic of what looks like 24" black lights in between the games along the bottom. What do you guys think of that? I dont think i would do them on every single game, but maybe every other?
 

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I also am toying with the idea of having the 12' walls covered from top to bottom with a mirror, giving the room the illusion of being much larger than it is. Even if i only did one wall would make it look bigger. That wall would be the last wall i would place games against. Only issue is finding mirrors to use that could cover the entire wall!
 
Heres another issue i have a question about. The 2 windows on the outside wall. I would like to cover these up somehow. I was thinking just using like a thick black curtain to cover them? Or maybe even black poster board? Has anyone else had this problem in their game rooms? I want them covered, but to also look good. This wall is going to have games side by side all along it, so really only need the top 2-3 feet to look good. Rest of window could be covered with whatever. I would like to be able to have the room as dark as i want, no matter what time of day it is!
 

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Final question for the night, is what to do with the entrance to the game room. What was once a wall with 2 doors on it, opening to each of the 2 bedrooms, has now been ripped out and a large opening now starts the entrance from the small hallway into the game room. The room will have the blacklight carpet, but as u can see from the pic, the rest of the hallway has just regular carpet. Trying to figure out what to use as an "entrance" into the room has me stuck! Only thing i can think of is using beads, or a large curtain. I just dont know on this one! Any thoughts?
 

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